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the error is with us? If so, we are indeed deceived, while we question not your good wishes, but your attention to primary duties for the public weal, in the drivelling manner in which you have voted the sums to complete your house; that beloved and sacred mansion, in which the people of America have deposited their liberties! their all! As on these natural supplies have depended the prices of the public lots, and they were constantly in the market, why have ye neglected them, of which ye have yet 6,000 remaining from the last great sacrıfice? Or why do ye leave them without the usual protection of a minimum ?

Had WASHINGTON lived till now, he would have succeeded in advising you to take half the segment of his continental inland navigation, owned and offered to you, by the Chesapeake and Delaware canal company.

Are you, venerable fathers, so blind as not to see the innumerable advantages to be derived from your connection there with? The states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, will immediately take what you leave of the proffered stock; for which, if you pay in 5 or 6 per cent. certificates, made facile as the former loan office certificates, and receivable in exchange for Louisiana or western lands. The effect of these certificates, on general circulation, would be immediately to raise the public lands above the cost of the shares, in the difference of the value given to all the back lands, by this augmentation of money: thus, the shares in the canal would cost the public less than nothing! and be productive of universal good.

The line of conduct we have presumed to point at in this instance, is in connection with immutable principles, with which Rosseau accords, in recommending real property to the state for its principal dependence! Judge Tucker has recorded Dr. Price's sentiments on the same subject, in his appendix to Blackstone. We have had from the lips of Dr. Price, the highest commendation of our plan to per suade the United States and states, to become mutually with the people, proprietors in roads and canals; the former in the arteries only, and the latter in every eligible cross road. By this mode, the public in due time, may become rich with little or no dependence on taxes, and yet so allied, and thereby so dependent on the people, as not to dare to infringe their rights in the minor republics. With such plans, when sufficiently carried into effect for the whole union, the people in their present republican system will be amply secure. On this delightful theme we could dwell for ever.

The increase of our excellent and improving toll bridges, are a most happy confirmation of our local increase, and a further encouragement for the government to do their duty, in due conformity with the sacred trust reposed in them. The astonishing increase of our post office revenue, is a further encouragement for our government to awake from the worse than torpid state in which they have continued for near 12 years. Remember, O patres patria! what your beloved Washington tells you, “that in a country so extensive as ours,

a government of as much vigour as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty, is indispensable." Then let us intreat you to realize the supreme happiness of doing good! of being preeminently useful! and do not, pray do not! forget the sentiment of Hamilton, "that a wise nation will never permit those who relieve the wants of their country, or who rely most on its faith, its firmness and resources, when either of them are distrusted, to suffer by the event."

In many parts of our book we hope we shall evince our due respect for commerce, as a principle of the highest importance to the very existence of liberty in any country; previous to which, we have only tó caution our readers against a confusion of ideas in the use of the terms, commercial principle, merchants, traders, and pedlars. The first, abstractly considered, is the most sublime gift of heaven, wherewith to harmonize and enlarge society. It is not only a principal stimilus to all industry; it is thence the grand parent of all the useful arts and sciences, and is the only deity who frankly tells its votaries, "by untouched credit and industry alone shall ye rise on my wings, to the temple of fortune and to fame."

. By the learned professions, and by any other calling, except that of a merchant, men may rise without that scrupulous attention to reputation and honesty, which is the basis of commercial elevation in all countries where commerce receives fair play; which has rarely been the case of late years, except in England and in Holland.

Dr. Priestley (on general policy) remarks, that "it is by com. merce we enlarge our acquaintance with the terraqueous globe, which tend greatly to expand the mind and to cure hurtful prejudices, unavoidably contracted in a confined situation at home." It must, says he, have a favorable influence on benevolence, and create a fondness for peace." The punctuality essential to all commercial dealings must inculcate upon the minds of all concerned in it, the principles of justice and honor." The immense importance of com. merce to any republic, where alone it can flourish in full bloom, is acknowledged by every one who has understood it; but as it has excited the jealousies of the privileged orders, it has been cruelly treated in many arbitrary governments.

Lycurgus, contented to be a prince of iron-hearted banditti, enobled only the profession of arms; but Salon more wisely ordained, not only that trades should be honorable, but that the council of the Areo. pagus should chastise the idle. Vide Plutarch.

Hesiod tells us, that in those times no trade was dishonorable; but a merchant, highly honorable, because his profession was favorable to a republic, and to republicanism,

Thales, Hippocrates, and Plato, were all engaged in commerce..., The profits of trade in the oil of olives, defrayed the expenses of the travels of Plato to Egypt. The opinion of Solomon, on trade, may be seen by the account given of the commerce of his time, in holy writ; but we need not go from modern times. What was Portugal, in the time of De Gama? Holland, in the time of De Wit? and what is

Britain now? Although the conduct of mere pedlars is sometimes brought forward to stigmatise commerce by the idle nobles and privileged orders of Europe; yet at last, we see all classes join in England, in giving commerce its true character.

Mercantile cities are the most happy, says Dr. Moore, because they are most congenial with the nature of man: there all is life, motion, and animation, leaving scarce the time for any to interfere with the happiness of others; there scandal, except for a great prince, or a nobleman, is absolutely out of the question. "The merchant does not like the soldier receive wages from his sovereign; nor like the lawyer, physician, &c. from his fellow citizen: his wealth often flows from independent sources; he is under no obligation to those from whom it is derived. Those of them who have received liberal educations, are the most liberal benefactors and the most be neficial patriots in the world." Dr. Moore.

All writers agree, that commerce and freedom, are reciprocally guarantees for each other: neither can exist long without both; and wherever one is discouraged, the other sickens; and if neither is re lieved, both are finally buried in one grave.

Thus commerce, roving still from place to place,
Blends, softens, and refines the human race;
Of jarring realms allays the mutual hate,
By cords of interest drawing state to state.
Where'er the breezes waft or billows roll,
Awakes the slumbering vigour of the soul;
Breaks the strange rivets prejudice had wrought,
And custom fasten'd on the free born thought.
Assists the press to spread each useful art,
Smooths the rough manners, meliorates the heart:
Till men, the land and ocean compass'd round,
Hail friends and brothers, still where men are found;
Till equal law, and virtue in her train,
Immortal liberty, o'er earth shall reign;
Truth, with a robe of light invest the ball,
And what one nation knows be known to all.

Sympson's science revived.

Montesquieu agrees with many of the principal republican writers, that freedom and turbulence are concomitants; however this may be, it is certainly incumbent on a free people to think less of the evil of war, than if they were less liable to be drawn into it. As America is now the only country where the people have uniform pretensions to liberty and good government, they ought to be forever on their guard against the insidious as well as open designs of all foreign and ambitious nations. By being on their guard, we only mean in full preparation for an event they ought daily to expect, and never to dread, what is rarely so great an evil as is supposed by the ignorant. The principles on which war is conducted by civilized nations, merely

gives us the choice of our last terrestrial bed. This choice, a love of country and for posthumous fame, will always enable a republican to make in an instant, except O! horrida bella, in civil war.

"Tell military men, a soldier or a sailor, said Dr. Moore, you are fighting for your country! This simple sentence contains in it all the magic of excellence. It conjures up the ideas of protecting our property, our homes; the abodes of our forefathers; the beloved scenes of our earliest pleasures and first affections. It implies defending from outrage our constitution, our freedom, our religion, our friends; parents, wives, children, and grand children."

"Vincit amor patriæ laudumque immensa cupido."

"It not only excites to virtuous exertions during life, but is a most consoling, soothing recollection in death.” "Dulces moriens remi niscitur argos."

Our American naval architects, are most of them self taught, and therefore, liable to errors, not so common to thorough bred mechanics and mathematicians; and yet persons of this description have often succeeded in building the fastest sailing ships in the world. Our 44 gun ships were built after the best European models, with some im provements in one instance: a novel addition was tried in two large and well secured diagonal braces, abutting a midship on the keel, and rising along the curves on each side, till at each end they support and add strength to the timber both of the sides and the decks, for the whole length of the ship, by which the longest ship would be in less danger of springing a leak, even if grounded a midship on a falling tide. All our public ships are well built and highly finished; even our medley farmers sometimes undertake to form models and to build merchant vessels of 90 to 200 tons, with little or no instruction..... Their general rules are, by endeavoring to imitate the belly of a duck or a fish, for the hull, and to have the extreme breadth within one third of the whole length from the stem, to have an easy entrance and true curve lines, with no hollow for the entire and clean run of the ship, however trimmed or ladened, that if possible, no dead water, as it is called, may follow her in her most rapid motion: but the combined difficulties to encounter in the entire construction and rigging a ship, involving as they do, the utmost stretch of mechanical and mathematical skill, as well as nautical experience of the varied actions and counter-actions of the elements, often at war with each other, and gravity opposed to both; all these difficulties make the entire art of ship-building the most complex of any of human invention. Hence we often see our ships over-masted and too crank, by unskilful and speculative proportions, from the hope of gaining a desirable velocity. These errors are however less frequent from our immensely increased and increasing experience; and in time may be wholly avoided. To enhance the value of our marine, we have now as fine a set of officers, as any in the world. Many of them would not mismanage the fleet, if ever called to exercise the duties of a higher command, than the present number of our ships will admit.

STATES.

Official statement of the Militia of the United States by the latest returns.

Dates.

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This incomplete return contains about one half of the militia, and near one fourth of the fire arms in the United States.

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